Oral Answers to Questions

Helen Grant Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady that kinship carers do a fantastic job, and we want more of them to step up to do it and be supported in that, but it depends on the nature of the placement and whether it is formal or informal. If it is informal, those children and young people will be able to apply for discretionary funding and could end up getting more than they would have done under the old EMA arrangements. We have taken those considerations into account.

[Mrs Helen Grant (Maidstone and The Weald) (Con)]

18. What steps he is taking to promote family-friendly policies.

[The Minister of State, Department for Education (Sarah Teather)]

The Government are committed to promoting family-friendly policies that can support better child outcomes, help parents to balance work and family life and deliver real benefits to employers. The Department is funding a scheme to support organisations to adopt more family-friendly services and working environments for clients and employees. The Government are consulting on proposals to introduce more flexible parental leave and extend the right to flexible working to all employees.

[Mrs Grant]

Lack of good child care can consign many capable women to the family home or to not having children. What action will the Minister take to improve this situation?

[Sarah Teather]

I am very aware of the difficulties that many families face in accessing suitable child care, which is one of the reasons why we announced last week that we will consult on a more flexible arrangement for adopting the free entitlement so that families can access it a little earlier and a little later in the day, for example. That is exactly why we extended the free entitlement to 15 hours.